Vignettes in blue
by kaktusic
Summary: Happy and not-so happy moments of Kurt and his friends we didn't get to see in the comics. So far, Logan, Kitty and Ororo. A bit of a mild spoiler for X-23#1 in second chapter. A lot of blood in the third one, so the squeamish ones...watch out!
1. Kitty: Say it

I love the old comics, so this is going on sometime after Uncanny X-Men 148.

I don't own Kitty or Kurt. They're Marvel's /Disney's.

o

o

o

_Just say it_.

She knows she' been a proper prick, and that she acts like a child that she worked so hard to prove she was not. She knows what the right thing would be for her to do. She feels like crap for not managing to bring herself to do it.

They never tell you that, being grown up, one has to deal, among other things, with cleaning after their own mess. Neither that cleaning one's own mess can be so gut-wrenching.

She walks in the living room, all casual and uncaring, in all intention to sit somewhere close to him, for change. Because he's alone, as she knew he'd be - who else would have the stomach to watch _Zorro_ for _eleventh_ blasted time - and the sofa he currently occupies is large enough for three. No excuse for her to slink away from him, as she's been doing for months. Nowhere to hide. Nothing to do to justify herself.

As for him, he's crouching on the sofa as if getting ready to jump into the screen, all tense, wiry muscles, swishing tail and glowing, focused eyes. He didn't notice her. He's staring at the dark-haired lady shoving her breasts under Zorro's face, and Kitty doubts he'd notice her if she was waving two big, red flags, cheerleading right in front of his nose.

Still, it might be worth a try.

Her heart does a funny little leap; her knees suddenly don't feel as firm as usual.

She follows the swishing motion of his tail; left, right, left, right…of all things that were unusual on him, it was his tail that had always made her the most wary of. Not the glowing, pupil-less eyes; not the blue fur, or those sharp-looking fangs. It was that blasted, ever-moving tail, that seemed the most unnatural on him, so unfitting for a human being, giving her creeps with the way it would wrap itself around a glass or mug and bringing it to his lips, as it was the most natural thing to do, or with the way it would casually handle the remote, while the man's hands were occupied with a bowl of popcorn and a bottle of beer. It gave her chills. And the fact that he was so unaware of sticking out like a sore thumb was what put her off the most. It just felt…unnatural. She had a feeling she'd be much more comfortable with him growling and hissing and constantly crawling on all fours, perhaps scratching his ear with his foot, than with seeing those inhuman eyes looking at her with such intelligence and emotion. It felt hideously out of place.

She didn't know what creeped her out more; the eerie movements of his tail, or the eerier feeling of herself being a perfect c*nt.

Enough of this, she decides. After seeing how Caliban turned out, she'd promised herself to set this right. No more of this ridiculous brattiness. She knows he's a good guy. Peter loves him; Wolvie loves him; Ororo loves him; everybody loves him… even she _likes_ him, dang it…but still she can't help herself liking him much more with her eyes closed.

_You're such a bitch, Pryde_.

"Hi…Kurt", she forces herself to utter in a very quiet, high-pitched, girly voice, and she's certain she hadn't sounded this pathetic since she was seven.

And he flinches. Her heart twists.

Her heart skips a beat, too, and feels like it's going to somehow get all squished inside her, because Kurt not only flinches, flashing those glowing eyes at her, but his tail wraps itself around his legs and grows awfully still; his shoulders hunch, as if he's trying to be as small as possible, as nonthreatening as he can be, and he gives her a surprisingly warm smile, considering the fact he seems to be putting great effort into showing his teeth as little as possible. His toes curl; his hands instantly hide in his lap.

It sickens her; she's sickened by herself, by how she'd made this young guy, this good, warm, playful guy instinctively turn into a walking, talking, self-conscious shadow of himself at the sight of her. He knows every weak spot, he'd picked it all - the poor fella must be quite used to that - and he tries to make his

…_hideous_…

unique traits as unapparent as possible for her. Only for her. He never acts this way around others, when he thinks she's not looking; only when she's around, and close to him.

_Compose yourself, Pryde._

"Well, hi yourself, _Katzchen_", he says brightly. "Can I consider myself fortunate enough to have acquired another fateful admirer of _Zorro the Avenger_ to watch this splendid performance with?

_Just say it. _

_Say it: I'm sorry, Kurt, for having been such a bastard to you._

_You can do it. Just say it, dang it. _

_Hel-loo…Earth to Katherine Pryde! Remember why you're here. Say "I'm sorry". Can't be that painful._

_Say _something_, then, Pryde, for God's sake_…

"Um, ah, well…"

_Great start. An "A" for coherence._

"Well, I…"

_Just say it. _

"…thought…I might…watch it a bit with you, if you don't mind."

"My dear lady, I'd be honored", he smiles, not showing his teeth much, and huddles in the corner of the sofa when it becomes apparent that, uncharacteristically, she was going to share the sofa with him. He handed her the bowl with popcorn …with his hand, not with his tail, as she'd seen him doing with Peter more than once. Dear God, was she that obvious?

_Say it_, she thinks as she takes the bowl and stuffs her mouth full of popcorn, so she has the excuse for not talking.

_Say it. _

She can't.

_Coward_.

Kurt is still huddled like a cat on his end of the sofa, his tail is still rigidly wrapped around his legs. But there's a small smile on his face, and she hates herself for being incredibly grateful that she can't get a view of his fangs from where she sits. It's an adorable smile, she knows, beautiful by any standard, and she's a childish, shallow prick for not being able to appreciate it.

They watch Zorro in silence, and as the minutes tick by, Kurt gets more and more absorbed in it; more and more relaxed. His tail is still wrapped around him, but not as rigid as before, and his entire body subtly, slowly shifts in his seat, with fluidity and grace even Kitty can admire, like a young feline enjoying the warmth and the softness of the sofa, and Kitty -Sprite, she recalls, as professor had named her - suddenly had the vision of a dark blue cat in shadow.

_Cat in shadow…shadow of a cat…_

_You're thinking gibberish, only so you wouldn't think of the first reason why you're here. _

But he passes her some pineapple juice, eyes fixed on the TV, and she can't bring herself to break this relatively comfortable silence.

_God, Kurt, I'm so sorry. _

She'll have the time and the opportunity to tell him that. Yeah. It doesn't have to be now. There's a plenty of time on their hands, and right now, Zorro and popcorn and pineapple juice will have to suffice.

_I'm sorry I'm such an idiot, Kurt. I'll make it up to you. And I'll tell you one day how sorry I am. Promise_.

One of these days, she assures herself.

One of these days.


	2. Ororo: If I said

**The song mentioned in the text is "If I said you have a beautiful body" by ****The Bellamy Brothers. Of course, not mine. **

**Kurt and Ororo aren't mine, either. They're Marvel's /Disney's. I'm merely venting off my Kuroro fix with this one.**

**If you squint, you might have a bit of spoiler for „X-23"#1 in here, but barely so.**

**O**

**O**

He'd heard that song today, first thing in the morning, and it stuck to his mind, playing over and over again in his memory. He caught himself humming it over breakfast, during the first and the second Danger Room session, at the lunch, and in particular now, when he was about to have some two hours of time spending with the person he'd thought of first when he'd heard the song.

He looked at her while her hair hung around her face, her attention on the chessboard, and it wasn't one bit peculiar that he was losing, this time quite effortlessly and spectacularly. It was difficult to play chess and simultaneously argue with that little voice in his head that was so seductively inspiring him to mischief.

Under normal circumstances, he'd go with the voice without second thought, but this time, the ridiculous thing it was telling him to do might cost him greatly. He wouldn't be able to cope with that cost. His heart pounded in his chest, and the erratic, swishing motion of his tail was impossible for him to control.

But that song…it was so beautiful. And if any woman ever deserved to be told how beautiful she was, it was the woman before him right now.

There, he was going to lose another game. Her knight had clear two jumps to his queen, and he had nigh a puny pawn to sacrifize in order to save the queen, the game, or his cheek, to that.

„You're making this too easy", she chuckled in her deep voice, making the fur on his neck to stand, sending the wave of tingles down his spine, to the tip of his nervous tail.

"Ororo", he said, "I want to ask you something, but I fear I might insult you in doing that."

Her left eyebrow arched in surprise. "Dear Elf, I'm pretty certain that anything you ask me is hardly likely to be insulting. I know you that well."

If anything, this made him feel a thousand times worse…his brain desperately searched for something that might serve as a believable replacement for his still unasked question, but his eloquence and proverbial wit seemed to have run dry along with his mouth. He felt as if his IQ dropped decent fifty points or so. Blank.

"Well…" he begun, hesitating.

_Nothing bad will happen. Nothing. She won't slap me and tell me to stay away from her in future. She won't zap me with a lightning bolt, or toss the chessboard in my head. The guy in the song makes it sound so natural; if he can say it, so can I. I'm still the incredible Nightcrawler. I've been an actor my whole life; I can make this sound – _

"Kurt?" Ororo gently nudged him, expression growing more and more curious by second.

"Well…" he cleared his throat; his voice had gone into an unflattering falsetto. "…well…if I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?"

His breath stopped in his throat; his heart seemed to freeze in a mid-beat.

Ororo's other eyebrow arched up…

… and then she burst in a rare, beautiful, throaty fit of laughter. Her silver hair danced around her as she tossed her head back and laughed some more.

He let out a constricted breath. The world started to regain colors, at last.

"Oh, Kurt", she still laughed, ruffling his hair affectionately, "it's not going to work this time, I'm afraid. I saw that queen of yours, and it's going down, and nothing you do or say can't distract me enough to forget it. Nice try, darling Elf…"

He grinned like a complete idiot while she was sweeping his queen off the board, still laughing softly, blue eyes sparkling with mirth.

It sometimes pays off to be a jester, he thought. It sometimes pays off to have people think you're joking even in moments when you're dead serious.


	3. Logan: The matter of claws

It was the unmistakeable scent of blood- and not an unsubstantial amount of it- that had him charging at Kurt's door. He didn't even bother to knock; he busted them with approximately three hundred pounds of adamantium, muscle, bone and hair, and there have been very few doors in existence that could withstand such assault. The door to his pal's room weren't in that category.

"Elf!" he howled, claws out; nobody in sight, only the posters of Captain Blood, Robin Hood and several other movie swashbucklers grinned at him, showing their pearly-whites and irritating the Hell out of him. Without a pause, following the coppery scent that rose every hair on his nape and back, he burst into the small, steamy bathroom, and nearly pierced the guy he'd been looking for with his infamous six-pack blades when he slipped on the wet floor, lost balance and crashed headfirst into the half-opened shower cabin, hitting his head hard on the wet wall with a painful THUD and leaving six deep gauges in the smooth ceramic surface. Something between a growl and a yelp escaped him when his nose informed him, sooner than his temporarily fogged eyes did, that he'd landed in a cabin slick with blood, and the really bad part of it was the fact that the blood wasn't his own.

"Elf!" he yelled, trying to clear his eyes, to bring the focus back; Kurt was close, right next to him, that much he could smell, but through the steam and the blood and his blinding, furious fear and the impact that would have landed anybody else into Emergency room-

"Logan!"

"Elf; y' alive, pal? Y'there?"

"Of course I'm here! Where else I'm supposed to be? The questions are, what are _you_ doing here, where's the _verdammt_ fire, and have you ever been familiarized with the concept of _knocking_?"

Logan swore under his breath, trying to find his footage, but the mixture of water and blood on the smooth tile wasn't making it easier for him. The adrenalin in his system evaporated a bit now that he realized that Kurt apparently wasn't in any kind of immediate danger, but the scent and taste of his friend's blood was still wrecking his instincts crazy, not to mention making his skin crawl with fear. Not that he'd ever admit it, though. But still.

"Whaddahellareyadoin', Elf?" Logan snarled, rubbing the already-knitting wound on his forehead, blinking to focus on Kurt. The blue guy was crouching perched on the edge of the shower cabin, naked except for the towel that he seemed to have hastily thrown over his hips when Logan had burst through the door, and wearing a very wide-eyed, stricken expression of alarmed anger on his face. However, it wasn't Kurt's unwelcoming attitude what made Logan growl from the bottom of his chest, baring his teeth and lashing out with his hand, twisting Kurt's wrist in his adamantium grip.

It was a massive hedge trimmer that Kurt was holding in that hand, blades dripping crimson, that made him do it.

"What am _I_ doing?" Kurt hissed, subtly showing his own respectably dangerous fangs, while slowly and determinedly twisting his arm and making it very difficult for Logan to keep his grip on Kurt _and_ his ground on the slippery floor. "What are _you_ doing, busting in here like a raving lunatic like this and totaling my bathroom in the process? Look!" Kurt pointed an accusing finger of his free hand at the spot where Wolverine's head had collided with the ceramic sanitary. While the head had already nearly healed, the tiles were less fortunate in the close encounter with the adamantium skull. The crack in the ceramic was quite spectacular.

"Kurt, I don't give a flyin' %&$$ about yer bloody bathroom; I wanna know what're ya doin' to yourself with this %$%% thing!" Logan snarled and snatched the trimmer from Kurt's bloodied hand; unfortunately, the movement had him overbalancing on the slippery, greasy film of blood, and he landed back in the shower cabin, hitting the wall hard with his back and the ceramic floor with his ass. He felt something crack, and the logic and the lack of pain instructed him that it weren't his bones that suffered the damage. Kurt buried his face in his palm, leaving the traces of blood on his hair and fur, and the sight of it refueled Logan's fury.

"I won't ask ya again, Elf!" he roared, trying again to get back to his feet, still hatefully clenching the trimmer like a thing accursed. Again, he lashed out and clenched Kurt's right wrist in a bruising grip. "Either ya tell me what were ya tryin' ta do t' yerself with this damn thing, or I'm draggin yer scrawny ass to Xavier, and then ya'll have to explain to him- "

"Explain him _what_? That I was trimming my nails and you charged in like a rabid dog and flattened my bathroom to the ground?" Kurt rose his voice in a snarl of his own. Logan could smell on him a lot of anger, a bit of fear, and a decent amount of embarrassment; he could hear the hammering heartbeat that wasn't getting any slower at all; the tail that had been drawn under him at first was now starting to swish from side to side, faster with each second, and a blind man would have recognized the message of the body language. "Now let go of me, Wolverine! I said, let _go_!"

_Wolverine_. Not even _Logan_, let alone _mein freund_. Out on the battlefield, it was something that comes with the uniform, but here, at home, it had an effect of a bucket of cold water in his face. He released Kurt's wrist, breathing hard, as Kurt's words, slowly, started to sink in.

"Ye were…_trimming_…."

He stared at Kurt's hands. He couldn't see where the blood was coming from, but now that he paid attention…

"…yer _nails_?"

His eyes travelled south, where Kurt's two-toed feet were clenching the narrow edge of the tub. Yep, there was more blood, leaking from somewhere there; he couldn't make out where from, but he could now easily imagine. He still didn't understand why, though.

"Yes! Yes, I was trimming my nails! Are you satisfied now? Your curiosity quenched? If so, would you mind showing yourself out the same way you came in, with a little less collateral damage, if possible?"

Logan cocked his head, his eyes going from Kurt's oddly shaped hands and feet, to his glowing, angry eyes. This wasn't Elf's style, snapping out like this; the last time he'd seen him this edgy, it was when his old friend from circus was killed and Logan, not knowing what was going on, had shredded the newspaper Kurt had just been reading that piece of news from. Certainly, every regular human being on planet would be livid if you invaded their privacy and smashed their bathroom to pieces, but Elf wasn't a regular human being, and he tended to react with humor and soothing words of affection that Logan couldn't understand where he kept pulling from. This, this was very unusual; almost more unusual than finding your best friend sitting naked in the shower cabin, cutting his fingers and toes with a hedge trimmer until blood covers the bottom of the cabin, filling the air with its hackle-raising scent.

"Now listen, Elf; I've seen my share of trimmed nails, my own grow faster than I have the patience to cut' em, but I've never seen anybody doing it with a bloody hedge trimmer, an' I don't recall any blood bein' supposed to come out in the process. So either y' tell me what's goin'on in that fuzzy head of yours, or I swear I'll have Xavier knock y' out with a mind blast an' ransack yer brain 'till we come to the problem! Now, which one's gonna be?"

Kurt stared at Logan with glowing pupil-less eyes, lips firmly pressed together, tail swishing, arms crossed on his chest, until his towel started to slip, and he swiftly gripped it with one hand, only now obviously remembering that he shouldn't crouch with his legs eagle-spread if he'd wanted to preserve the minimum of modesty, and all that significantly hampered his intimidating potential. Logan grinned humorlessly.

"Well, you haven't seen nails like mine", Kurt said quietly, looking aside. "They are hard like wood…impossible to cut with regular scissors. And they grow…strangely."

"Strangely?"

"Yes, strangely! I can't cut them properly to resemble regular human nails if I don't, er, snatch away a bit of flesh. If I let them have their way, they resemble…er…" he paused. "…claws."

"Claws?"

"Are you just going to repeat everything I say? I can just say everything twice and spare you the trouble."

"_Claws_", Logan cracked a smile and gave Kurt a smug look. "Claws, my ass. Elf, you don't know a %&$$ about claws. No competition."

The hollow expression in the yellow eyes quickly wiped away the smugness from Logan's face. Not funny.

And then he remembered how he'd noticed, occasionally, how Kurt's fingernails, from time to time, would start to form themselves into a subtly pointy, slightly curving shape that wasn't really a talon, but wasn't entirely a regular homo sapiens trait, either. Or how Kurt rarely showed his hands without gloves, even around the house in the free hours, or how, from time to time, the tips of Kurt's footwear did seem to be a bit pointier that usual, but never for too long, and Logan never really paid attention. As long as he knew, neither did any other member of their motley crew. Save one. This one.

"So…er."

"Yes, _er_."

"And ya _have ta_ use this damn thing?" Logan looked at the bloodied trimmer, his lips showing teeth at the sight and scent of it.

"The other alternative is an axe."

"Coulda asked me t'do it for ya."

Kurt chuckled. "Thank you, Logan, but no thank you. You're no manicure man. No offense."

"None taken. An' ya can't go without drawin' blood?"

"They stay too…prominent if I do."

Logan looked around, at the blood on the floor, in the cabin, on the trimmer, on himself, on his shirt and trousers, on Kurt's fur.

"Elf, y' don't have ta do this ta yerself. Why do ya do it? Yer what y' are. Yer a funny guy. Only fitting if yer nails grow in funny ways. Nothin' wrong with it."

"I prefer it this way."

"Those things could be useful in a scrap, too."

"I prefer it this way", Kurt repeated in a polite, but firm tone that clearly indicated there was no more room for argument there. Logan opened his mouth to argue, but the way Kurt's jaw was set, he realized, in a rare influx of empathy, that he could only make the matter worse and that he'd better be silent. For now.

"You done already?" he asked instead.

"Almost. Just a little bit here…" and Kurt's tail scooped up the trimmer, he took it in his hand, bent over, and with merciless determination, cut off another little piece of a toenail, drawing more blood which trickled down his foot and down the white porcelain of the tub. The trimmer made a sickening SNAP while he did it. Logan watched, feeling the hair on his neck stand up again.

"That was a little bit; enough now", he snapped, grabbing what seemed to be a clean towel from the shelf and threw it at Kurt, who almost keeled over trying to simultaneously catch the towel, keep the balance on the edge of the tub, keep the trimmer in his hand and keep the towel around his hips from slipping.

"Hell, Elf, stop squirming like a girl. Y' don't got anythin' I haven't already seen. Not even claws."

"Just pass the alcohol, will you?" Kurt smiled, wrapping his hands in the towel. Blood blossomed on the white cotton almost instantly. Logan hovered over him, trying to assess the damage, but Kurt handled things with such clinical efficiency that it soon became obvious that he'd been doing this his whole life, and that Logan was only getting in his way.

Still, Logan stayed and watched, silent, and finally, when Kurt's bleeding had stopped and he bamfed to the sleeping room to get dressed, Logan washed the blood away, cleaned the floor, fixed the shower enclosure he'd busted, and washed as much blood as he could from the towel.

"Thanks", Kurt said quietly from the door, in a tone that indicated subtly, most likely against his own will, that he'd much rather if Logan hadn't witnessed this at all, let alone cleaned up after him, but that he still appreciated the effort.

"Welcome", Logan pretended to have missed the undertone. "Hell, I though I had issues with _my_ claws."

"I live to surprise", Kurt grinned.

"Y' live t' complicate things, Elf. Y' don't have ta do this. But if that's yer choice, I know a good way of drowning our mutual pains, considerin' the bleedin' claws an' all."

Kurt's eyes gleamed with familiar mischief, and Logan felt as if the load of million pounds had been lifted from him. Ignore the scent of blood, and the elf is back the way as he should be.

"The last one to Harry's buys the beer!" Kurt laughed and bamfed away from the room, leaving Logan coughing in the cloud of acrid smoke. Logan walked through the busted door in no particular hurry. Considering the circumstances, he might as well give the elf a bit of a head start.

END


End file.
